Content marketing is the art and science of developing and distributing content that delivers valuable, timely, and consistent information to a pre-determined audience. Essentially, content marketing is creating newspaper articles that are company or industry-specific, that people actually want to read. It’s the art of being a journalist, for a company, without having to write for a newspaper, because who reads those?

In previous posts we talked about how to create timely, valuable, consistent blog posts, you can read thathere. We have come to realize that we put the cart before the horse with that blog post, what good is having great content if you haven’t properly implemented your content marketing strategy to begin with? So, we’ve compiled yet another handy-dandy list to help keep your content marketing strategy on track.

Mission Critical

Make a mission statement for your content. Yes, you should have one for your company, but you should also come up with a mission statement for your content. If you’re a math person think of it as an equation: Audience (A) + Knowledge (B) = Outcome (C) (A+B=C). If you’re a clothing boutique in Calgary, your content mission could be: To give Calgarians the information that helps them make the best fashion choices. If your content doesn’t work towards your mission, you’re writing in the wrong direction.

Create Your Customer

There are entire careers made on being able to define a “buyer persona.” It may seem a little bit odd or even downright creepy, but the stronger your idea of who your audience is, the better your content marketing will work. Figuring out your buyer persona is much more accurate if you brainstorm with other people. Bring a group of your co-workers together and give them post its. Have them write down their answers to find the common denominators. Who are your ideal customers? Where do they live? Where do they work? How old are they? Where do they hang out? What do they do for fun? What is most important to them? What kind of car do they drive? How many kids do they have? What are their future goals? You get the idea. Keep going until you have flushed out a really clear idea of an ideal customer (or two.) That way you will know who you are creating content for and you can create just for them.

Set the Goal Post

Everything you do in marketing (or business for that matter) should have an end goal. You have to have a desired outcome in mind in order to measure it. Defining your content marketing goal goes deeper than that. Your goal doesn’t have to be static, it can change over time as you achieve them. Start off small, maybe you want to grow your email list or display thought leadership. Next, it can be to convert your readers into customers and so on and so forth.

Of course, all of this is a moot point if you don’t have an effective platform to disseminate your content marketing. We can help you with not just content marketing strategy and creation, but we can also set up your publishing platforms like blogs and social media for you! Call us up, we can have a chat and a coffee!

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